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• The business partners/lovers of legendary scam company Theranos officially move onto their next journey together: prison
• The US economy is taking its ball & going home as exports fall to a 7-month low
• London embarrasses NYC & SF by taking the top spot for fintech venture funding
• Is Microsoft for the people? The tech giant promises to bring CoD to other consoles, including Nintendo and (fingers crossed) PlayStation

2 Years Later, China Finally Takes the L

It's okay, China; you're not the only one. The world's largest, strongest, and final holdout in the battle against C-19 has finally joined the rest of the world by admitting defeat.

Except, don't be thinking Xi stood out there and said, "Yeah, the virus won…a bunch of you are about to die." Instead, Xi and the CCP basically said, "we're not going to trap you in your house for days/weeks at a time anymore."

The nation announced the official beginning of the pullback of China's now-infamous zero-C19 policy. The policy did an undeniably incredible job of quelling cases out the gate. But since then, economic woes and a desire for freedom of movement have started to take primacy two years later.

Is it a coincidence that China waited until after Xi's securing an unprecedented third term? Is it a coincidence this comes just days after nationwide protests?

Probably not. And what's almost definitely not a coincidence is this change of pace emerging while the Middle Kingdom's economy starts to show signs of undue pain.

For starters, recent reports showed that both the nation's exports and imports contracted at the fastest rate in multiple years last month, falling 8.7% and 10.6%, respectively. Needless to say, that was much higher than expected.

Adding to the pain, this data comes to light just a month after consumer spending in the world's most populous country surprisingly contracted by 0.5%. All in all, a series of reports highlighting broad-scale economic pain has largely driven China's government to the realization that a large-scale relaxation of C-19 rules is well overdue.

The scary part now is what happens to the healthcare system. You can be about as certain as with anything that cases are about to rip in the wrong direction.

With less than two-thirds of the elderly population fully vaccinated and an already (mildly) stressed hospital system, we can only hope that things don't turn out as bad as they could. But then again, they'll probably just build 50 brand-new, state-of-the-art hospitals this weekend, anyway.

Shoutout to the Peel readers there. Let us know how things turn out on the ground!

Source

MongoDB ($MDB) ↑ 23.23% ↑

• Translation: Anytime you see "adjusted" earnings, that's Latin for "bullsh*tty accounting gimmicks at play." Proceed with caution.
• Still, Wall Street don't care. MongoDB reported a relatively solid earnings report yesterday, with GAAP (aka real) EPS coming in at a $0.17 loss, right in line with expectations, and a sizable beat on the top line with YoY growth of 47%.
• The flint fueling the fire of the stock, however, was that "adjusted" earnings figure, which happened to come in as a surprise profit. At the same time, the firm raised expectations going forward, sending the stock on a ride.

Campbell's Soup ($CPB) ↑ 6.02% ↑

• And now, for a company that's the exact opposite of MongoDB, your favorite flu-medicine provider also posted some knock-out earnings yesterday.
• Campbell's Soup shares gained over 6% on a 16% EPS beat while raising expectations at the same time-aka the best recipe for a stellar day.
• The results were largely boosted by a little thing called inflation, as the company cited "strong pricing" as a large driver for their results. Congratulations, your pain is their success.